Silent Shore High
by whispering-voices
Summary: Teenager Casie has moved to silent shore high and meets Erik...
1. Chapter 1

Hey, this is my second fic, I thought I would give a modern day one a try. I'm sorry this chapter is short, but I am writing this at 1 am. hehe. Reviews are VERY welcome!

**First day**

Casie scrunched her hand into a fist ready to strike her alarm clock that went off at 7.00am, it was 6.59am. She lay there in her soft, inviting bed trying to keep her heavy, green eyes from closing.

Suddenly that familiar, dreadful noise filled the room. Casie frowned with frustration and practically punched her hated alarm clock. She lifted her feet out of bed and placed them in her warm, fluffy slippers that she always kept near her bed so her toes wouldn't have to experience the harsh, cold temperature that always seemed to linger in her room. She trampled over to her shiny, oval mirror, as she peered at her reflection she ran to the bathroom to relieve her eyes of the panda-ness splotched around them. Whilst in there she jumped in the shower to make herself feel fresher and cleaner.

Casie traipsed back into her spacious room; the walls were painted a light lilac colour, the carpet matched. Against the wall where a large window was situated was her bed, the soft-looking sheets were dark purple, a fluffy cream throw was slung over the middle of it. Multiple stuffed bears were carefully placed leaning against the wall at the end of her bed. She looked at it dreamily wishing she could be snuggled in it right then, but she knew she had to get ready for her first day at her new school, she had moved house on the Friday, today was Monday. She was in 10th grade and wanted to make a good impression. Casie gazed at herself in the mirror, wondering what make-up to apply. She had short, straight dark brown her with natural tones of a dark gingery colour sprinkled here and there. Her eyes were big and a vibrant emerald colour, but looking carefully you could see slits of amber and brown.

First she put on some much needed black mascara, followed by some brown eyeliner and light cream eye shadow. After being completely satisfied at her make-up applying skills, she wondered over to her wardrobe, quickly she pulled out a small black, pleated skirt and a plain, white, long-sleeved top. Only then she felt she could go downstairs for breakfast.

Casie's mother had died of cancer two years earlier from smoking, from saying that you might think she was just a mum who traipsed around all day doing the housework with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth, but that would be wrong, she was someone who cared about nothing more than her daughter, she drove her to friends houses, helped her with homework, she put 100 in to everything that mum's generally do. Now Casie lived with her father, who was equally generous. He worked at an office for a company that sold computers, so it was a quite a well-paid job, they had transferred him to a different set of offices, that is why Casie, her dad and her pet dog Oscar had no choice but to move. He wouldn't have to be at his workplace for another hour.

Casie slung her bag over her shoulder and strode out of her front door. Her school was only five minutes away so it didn't take her long to walk. Once actually there, the surroundings were quite pleasant, the corridors were all painted a light peach colour and the teachers smiled at her whenever they walked past, soon Casie learned that her first lesson of the day was… Chemistry – Oh the fun of it!

She walked to where her science room was located – all the while trying to be positive. She must have been late because when the door opened a class full of students turned to face her, Casie scanned the room trying to find a spare seat she could make hers. She skimmed each row, then an interesting looking boy caught her eye, he had jet black hair, glowing beige skin and...He had a mask on, it was flesh coloured, probably so it looked natural, but it stood out like a sore thumb. His eyes were big pools of blue and were quizzically looking at her. There was a spare seat next to him. Casie cautiously made her way over to the masked boy and sat next to him. "Sorry I'm late" Casie said almost inaudibly.

"That's fine, you must be Casie Hamilton?" said an old man at the front; he had big circular glasses on and a white lab coat on.

Nervously, she nodded in reply. "Well, welcome to Silent Shore High." The teacher smiled. Casie just thanked him with another nod.

Casie reached down to get her bag when she noticed the paper in front of the boy next to her; it was covered in black biro drawings of birds, people and random patterns that looked like something that you would see in a tattoo design book. Casie glanced at his Science folder, his name was Erik Dubois.


	2. Chapter 2

**Hey, I'm going to switch to first person (I think that's what it is!) because I find it hard to right any other way. But thanks for your review Cadringiel!**

**Chapter two – **

I was so tired at the end of the day, but I still had one more lesson to get on with. It was ok though because it just happened to be art that was my favourite subject at my old school. I pushed the old wood door open, again Erik Dubois, the masked boy was there and _again _there was a spare seat next to him, so I walked as quickly as I could, because the art teacher was looking sternly at me. I asked Erik if the seat was taken, of course he said no, well, it was taken now. Every now and then I peered across to take a look at him, he was wearing a grey and black shirt with rolled up sleeves and black jeans, I noticed he was wearing a small chain around his wrist with some sort of Japanese symbol on it. Throughout the lesson, I couldn't help but glance every now and then at was Erik was painting. On the canvas was a sizeable image of a tall woman, from photos he had around him, I gathered it was his mother. Whoever she was, she was painted exquisitely. I felt awful when I looked at mine after looking at his, I sighed with shame, I had never worried about my artwork before. "Don't worry, yours is fine." Erik made me jump; his voice was so smooth & deep. I glanced over at him, he was still painting intently. He must be shy, I thought. His mask probably gave him no self-esteem.

"er…thanks" I smiled in reply. Erik just glanced at me and then my work-in-progress; I had painted a picture from a book, as it was my first day I didn't know we had to bring in resources to study. "Are you new?" Erik ventured into conversation with me; I could tell he didn't socialize a lot from the way his eyes were cast downwards instead of keeping eye contact.

"Yeah, I just moved here."

Erik just nodded in reply.

Throughout the week, I saw Erik more and more in my lessons, out of 10 lessons I was in 6 with him. It was uncommon to be in 3 classes with the same person let alone 6! We hadn't had a proper conversation; I thought it was quite unfortunate, because he looked like he could do with a friend as I never once saw him with anybody. In nearly all of the lessons that we were together in, I had taken the spare seat next to him. I felt sorry for him, that no one ever talked to him, or wanted to sit next to him. I noticed in each lesson he always had a piece of paper in front of him with those familiar biro drawings on it. One day, 3 weeks into my school life there, I noticed 5 or 6 boys in a huddle; they were the typical muscular, popular guys that all the girls swooned over, except me. As I walked down the corridor I tried to discreetly look at what they were huddled around. I peered through a gap between two of the boys and on the floor was Erik; they were trying to pull off his mask. "Hey! Leave him alone!" I couldn't help but shout loudly, the huge boys turned round and growled at me like a pack of wolves. Oh crap, I thought, I just hoped a teacher would walk by before I was on the floor with Erik. After some seriously harsh words were shouted at me, I couldn't hold back my anger; I reached out and slapped the one standing right in front of me. I gasped at my own actions and glanced at Erik who had a small bruise on the uncovered part of his face, he was gaping at me with shock at what I had just done. Erik got up, still looking at me and nodded his head in the other direction as a signal to run. So I did. As it was the end of the day we ran outside of the school grounds. And stopped, we were gasping for air, I really had to do more exercise. "I…I…Thank you" Erik managed to get out between all the gasps of air.

"It's ok" I lightly touched the bruise on his soft face, "Is your face OK?" I examined.

"Yes…yes…It will be fine" He said quietly, "Well, we better go home, I don't want them to catch us up."

"Yeah, that's a good idea." I smiled. I watched the mysterious masked boy walk away. I wonder where he lived.

The next morning I came into my history class and headed to my seat next to Erik. I sat down and unpacked all my items quickly, as I glanced towards him I noticed he had other bruises on his face. He had all the colours of the rainbow on his face! "Erik…what the hell hap…"

"They caught me up" he said abruptly.

"Well, I would never have guessed, shouldn't you report them to a teacher or something?" I stared at him.

"No"

"Why?"

"Because…then I would get into trouble too." He lowered his face

"What? Why?" I didn't have a clue what on earth he was going on about.

"If you see them later, you will understand."

"Oh" I finally caught his drift. I was quite surprised at this, from what I had seen in the hallway the day before I had gathered that Erik was…well…weak. Obviously not.

As I walked into the lunch hall, I saw Erik once again in the corner on his own, where he normally sat. I would normally have gone to sit with some newly acquainted friends, but I decided to sit with him.

"Hey" I said as I slung myself on the plastic chair next to his. "Saw your handy work earlier." I was referring to the giants who he had attacked.

'I'm not proud of it' he said suddenly looking up.

I was slight taken aback; I would be if I was him. 'Pfft, I would be' I remarked.

'Are you not going to eat anything?' His big ocean-like eyes peered at me.

I shook my head, 'Nah, I don't really get hungry at lunch'

'Oh, you should eat more regularly, it's better for you.' He said almost inaudibly, the canteen was buzzing with students talking about various things like what they were doing at the weekend; how Sarah had broken up with Michael, etcetera, etcetera.

'So, what are you doing at the week end?' Well, I may as well have joined in; there was nothing else to talk about.

'I don't know yet', he looked shocked someone else was interested about him. 'You?'

'I'm going to the cinema with a girl who lives next door to me.'

Erik nodded in reply,

'Want to come?' I asked, I swear he nearly choked on his water.

'Pardon?' He blinked

'Do you want to go to watch a movie on Saturday?' I said slowly with a hint of sarcasm.

'Ok…' he lowered his eyes to his food, 'what time?'

'7.30, do you want us to come and call on you?'

'Yes please.' I couldn't help feel sorry for him when he spoke, his words were always so quiet and he never kept eye contact. After exchanging addresses and phone numbers we went to our last classes.

After school, we walked to the school gate together and went our separate ways back to our homes.


	3. Chapter 3

SORRY IT HAS TAKEN SOOO LONG TO POST ANOTHER CHAPTER, BUT I HAVE BEEN SO BUSY WITH SCHOOL AND EXAMS, ITS BEEN MAD! BUT HERES ANOTHER ONE, NEXT CHAPTER WILL BE LONGER.

THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR KIND REVIEWS. :)

* * *

That night I sat on my bed, sighing with frustration. I glared at my wardrobe. I once again attempted to pick out something to wear, everything I put on felt frumpy and uncomfortable, I needed to lose weight from Christmas. The film was at 8 and it was 7:13. It would take me and the girl who lived next-door, Louise 10 minutes to walk to Erik's house, then a further 20 minutes to the cinema. So really I had about half an hour to get ready. I picked up a fistful of tops and chucked them onto my bed, I should probably wear black, I thought, it's a slimming colour. A few minutes later I put on a long sleeved black top and some cropped jeans with plain black shoes, it would have to do. I grabbed my bag off the floor and shooted down the stairs "Bye Dad, I'm off now!" I called as I opened the door. After 2 seconds he appeared in the hall way, "Are you not having anything to eat before you go?" he asked surprised,

'no, I really don't have time' I answered, smiling at his concern.

'ok then…Well have a good time and call me if you're going to be out after 11.30 ok?' He smiled and kissed me on the cheek. I nodded and jumped over the small shrubs separating mine and Louise's gardens and knocked on her door. I hadn't really talked to her that much since moving in, but I needed to make some friends so I had asked her 3 nights before if she wanted to watch a film we me at the movies and she happily said ok. Earlier in the day I had told her about Erik and clearly stated not to ask about the mask, I didn't want to make him feel uncomfortable, I already knew he was shy. As soon as I knocked, I could see her walking to the door through the glass. "Hi Louise" I feebly smiled.

A few minutes later we made our way to Erik's house, it didn't take too long; suddenly I was walking up his driveway. 'Hi' Erik said as he opened the door, he quickly shut it behind him. His house was quite small and slightly rundown looking, the used-to-be white paint was cracking and flaking, the garden had dead, decaying flowers planted in dry soil and overgrown grass. As we headed away from the house, I glanced up at the top bedroom window and saw a tall, gaunt looking woman staring at us with a cigarette in her hand.

'This is Louise' I told him and discretely pointed at her. She waved and said hi and asked him how he was, she was doing great. As we made out way to the movies there were a few awkward silences during conversations but I always managed to steer them in another direction, but I was quite relieved when we reached the cinema. Nearly as soon as we got escorted to the right room, the film started, it was a typical action thriller I thought Erik may have liked, I didn't want to pick anything to girly. 2 hours later when it finished, I asked Erik what he thought, "Well, it wasn't a bad story line, but when it came to the camera angles, sometimes it was the right choice and the choice of music was too harsh for some scenes..." we then spent about half an hour talking about the film, Erik reeled off a list to me on what was good and bad, I was quite taken back. It seemed when he was talking about something he knew a lot about, he gained confidence, but when talking about himself he became so utterly shy to say anything.

Afterwards, Louise wanted to get something to eat, so we went to a pizza place just round the corner from the cinema. Erik and Louise ordered a pizza each, while I ordered a smoothie. Erik could sure eat a lot of food. Louise left a slice of hers. I was glad to see Erik coming out of his shell a bit, he talked a bit more than usual, but he was still so introverted and hesitant, for example, when we were talking about our art class and about his work, he could talk for ages but as soon as I asked him if he had any siblings, he went totally quite and just said no. About half an hour later, we went to a park we stumbled upon. I ran to the swings and shouted to Erik to push me. I felt like 10 years had been taken off my age. But sure enough, as soon I sat down on soft, rubbery seat Erik was behind me pushing the swing, it was the most fun I had had in ages. As soon as I started to feel sick I jumped off and landed safely on the ground and lay down from tiredness, I had no energy left but Louise was still running around like a child. Erik came and stood at my head and tilted his head 'Are you okay?'

'Yeah' I replied, 'just tired' I said closing my eyes and wanting to go to sleep.

'Oh, yes me too' he said.

'Do you live with you mother?' I asked, wondering if it was the woman I had seen in the window.

'Yes.' He said abruptly, looked up at the sky and then went to sit on a swing. Why did he always do this? it was so strange. I looked at my watch it was about 11.15, I was tired and may as have gone home. 'I have to go' I called as I sat up. Erik also looked at his watch,

'Yes, me too.'

We walked to a certain point in between our houses and said goodbye to Erik then Louise and I walked to our houses, she was tentative at making conversation, but I was too tired to think of anything to say. As soon as i approached my front door i quickly said goodbye, rushed in and up the stairs and fell onto my bed.


End file.
